The Dark Lord
by Overtake
Summary: No one teaches redemption like someone who has already fallen and gotten up (long long ago in a galaxy far far away). No one needs this lesson like a child born without love (but with a great deal of Magic). Who can raise a monster better than an inhuman man?
1. Chapter 1

Not so long ago, Not so far away

Vader saw the face of his son, filthy and exhausted. He saw the sweet spirit of Padme's last gift and felt the wonder of being free from the taint of the Dark side. The lack of anger made him feel raw and empty- like his skin after the fire melted away his flesh. The boy practically glowed in his father's eyes. A few whispered words and then Vader's eyes lost focus. And darkness returned.

He drifted.

Time passed in a blur of moments of consciousness and unconsciousness. The world had no real light but it wasn't truly dark either. Simply warm and soft. He heard voices but didn't comprehend them. He felt a voice whispering to him words of potential redemption and promises of another's fall into madness if he failed. But nothing was important. He was safe and warm. There was no danger for the first time in ages.

Then the pain and the light came. His bones bent from the fall through the too-small passage. He was cold. His skin hurt from the roughness of sensations around him. Even with his eyes closed he felt them ache from the light. He screamed in pain and fear.

Then he was placed on something soft and warm. A familiar beating sound, one he hadn't even noticed from the safe place, returned, softer than before. The sensations of touch began to make sense- they were not painful, simply overwhelming. Exhausted from his trial, he succumbed to sleep.

Rebirth was not what he was expecting. Actually, he wasn't expecting rebirth at all.

But he was nothing if not practical. . . That is to say, _eventually_ he was practical. Well, actually he spent his first three years screaming and having temper tantrums. The anger he normally felt when he was one with the Dark side was muted and came and went. He tried to think of Luke and Leia and avoid lashing out, but the sudden powerlessness did nothing to stop fear which permeated his whole mind like the cold frosts of Hoth, making his bones ache. Usually he was able to resist the temptation to snap or break something or someone. He would think of Luke, wish he could remember Leah from their brief meetings during her interrogation, and he would keep himself to screaming as he tried to relearn how to walk. Other times, he just destroyed stuff.

He _did_ learn quickly that while the force was accessible, it wasn't quite right in this new world. He could still use it in times of distress, but it didn't feel . . . angry, in the way the dark side had when he used it to react to irritations. This felt much more. . . clinical. It was empty of any emotion but what he had inside himself. And it was harder to access, slipping from his grasp due to lack of focus rather than lack of calm or anger.

When he began to control his body and see his surroundings he took note that his mother, Shmi, was alive, he again had no father (this time due to a war that ended just after his birth), and that the technology was really, really _bad_. He was on an isolated world with no communication to a _single_ other planet. By the force, he had strange luck. A chance to live with Shmi again seemed like good luck. But terrible, terrible, mechanics seemed like bad. And the inability to contact Luke or a Jedi was . . . neither good nor bad.

Once he got over himself, he tried to help out his mother. This pleased her greatly. He had always shown her he was intelligent but he had rarely used his intelligence to help her. He began by cleaning. She carefully taught him that cleaning dishes without hands was something other people couldn't do. He learned not to do it in front of anyone. He also took to caring for her small bicycle. This was also something that a nearly four year old child was not supposed to be able to do. But this chore could still be done in front of people. He was confused to say the least. But he decided that the people on this planet had strange customs and accepted it. He was becoming more patient with other people as he realized that his mother, who he loved dearly, was one of those people who were unable to clean a bike and move things with her mind.

In this world, Shmi Skywalker was called Susan Jones Walker and he was A. S. Walker. The A was supposed to stand for Amos, his father's name. The S seemed to be for Saul. (Privately Vader felt that it was more of the . . . _cause_ of his rebirth allowing him to call himself Anakin Sky Walker if he so desired as he grew up.) They lived in a small town outside of London. His mother worked as a seamstress for a small shop and lived in one of the rooms above the store. It was a single room with a sink and table and soft bed. Two small chairs, a dresser and a small gas oven were the only luxuries they had. His mother washed their clothing by hand and hung it to dry on a rope line that ran from the one window to the other end of the room. Food was prepared over a small fire in the oven. There was no fancy storage unit for their food- not even the icebox that some of their neighbors had. This was the reason they needed the bike. His mother took the bicycle twice a week to the grocery for tins of meat and fresh veggies and milk.

Vader, Anakin, found a type of peace in his new life. He coasted through the basic schooling that was both very simple and very strange. History was fascinating. The sciences were laughable. Children of "common age" were dull. He was noticed for his intelligence. His mother was praised for it. The schooling continued at the same dull pace.

When Anakin-Amos turned nine he began to feel a vague worry settle into his bones. He began to dream of his mother's first death and his own.

He began to follow her around. Shmi-Susan laughed and called him her little duckling. For the first time, he seemed to act his age. Anikin-Amos felt his distress grow but hid it in hugs and repeated checks of her bicycle.

Shmi-Susan died on a clear skied chilly day in August. She was riding her bike down a country road. The road curved and she followed it. She followed it straight into an oncoming truck. Her head hit something (no one could figure out what) and she was sent to the hospital for internal hemorrhaging. She never woke up.

Anikin-Amos spent the next two days watching over her at the hospital. He held her hand when her breath turned weak. He counted the seconds between breaths. He was still counting when the nurse pulled him away from her side and explained she was gone.

He stayed with her employer for the weekend as her finances were sorted and her funeral was arranged. His clothes were packed and he was sent to the orphanage. By then he was counting in days and hours and minutes and seconds.

Anakin spent the week silent, refusing to talk. He spent most of his time meditating, his father's pocket watch in his hands, listening to the tick of time. The numbers of the time were a silent song in his head. He remembered a planet far away, in another lifetime, that mourned by silence. He remembered another that mourned by singing. He had an abysmal singing voice.

He felt grief. He mourned. But through it all he remembered that moment of wonder when he woke up and saw her face with his month old eyes and realized the gift he had been given to have her in his life again. He had hope that the twice he had found her was part of a larger pattern. His hope sustained him. His grief was released in his silent counting from her last breath.

The orphanage heard that he hadn't spoken since the death of his mother. The adults seemed to think that his chosen silence meant that he was stupid or broken. He was then stuck on the floor of an over crowded nursery and left there. The children in the room were ages one and a half to five. He ignored them. Before September ended he was shipped off to another, larger, orphanage, on the edge of London.

December arrived in his new lonely home without joy. Most of the children could be divided into two categories: Those who would spend the month missing family and feeling miserable and those who had stopped mourning and were glad for the tree, music and visitors that came on these charitable times. Anakin counted each new week from the time of his mother's death.

Anakin-Amos had a reputation of being the quiet, obedient child now. That meant that, even in mourning, he was tasked with helping set up for the holidays. He spent the end of the month working his fingers to the bone to distract himself from memories of the past year. His mother had cut a branch of an evergreen tree for their home and tucked a small book under it at midnight on the twenty fourth.

Christmas passed. All of the children were disappointed. New year's approached with the adults all a panic about putting the finance books together. Numbers were easy for the young Anakin. Luckily he was still too young to help with that chore.

Then on New Year's eve, 19 weeks and four days and five hours and seventeen minutes and twenty three seconds from the time of his mother's last breath, he stopped counting.

( _For those of you curious about the timing: Anakin was reborn on_ _November 1, 1918. The Great War (WWI) ended officially on the 11th. His father died sometime in October. The news reached Susan and resulted in Anakin's birth three days ahead of schedule. He has no father in either world. Nine years later, Shmi/Susan dies on August 16th at seven in the evening. They will have little impact on the story after this. But Anakin is ten years older than the child he will meet next chapter. Whoever could it be?_ )


	2. Chapter 2

_Static in the Air_

It wasn't uncommon for women to show up at the orphanage to make use of the nearby midwives and clean facilities. It was an easy reference point for the midwives to find. So no one was surprised when the pregnant woman showed up on New Year's Eve.

As one of the older children Anakin was allowed to stay awake to welcome in the new year. Each child over eight was sent to their room with a small packet of sweets (generously donated and saved from Christmas). Most of the children, Anakin suspected, had already fallen asleep waiting for the large grandfather clock in the front of the building to chime midnight.

Anakin hadn't. He felt something in the air. Something that was calling to him. Something like the edge he felt as a young man before battle. Something vibrating the air around him. It was as though the world had been painted in pale shades of gray until that moment and now some Great Artist had lifted up his paintbrush. It was a moment before _something_ happened.

He needed to move. His legs itched to run. But there were three boys in his room and children needed sleep. He quietly paced the room, walking back and forth like a swinging pendulum. By ten, that wasn't enough and he moved on to the complicated stretches he'd learned as a padawan, in preparation for learning the lightsaber. By ten thirty, he was in the hallway, hands behind his back as he marched back and forth as he once had on the observation deck of one of his space ships. At eleven, Vader heard the grumble and bustle downstairs as the women in charge left their small party to deal with the business that had arrived on their front step.

He moved down to the stairs and watched the woman enter.

She was filthy. She was in pain. She would die. Anakin saw it as clearly as he saw her. She would die.

He ghosted into the room, ignored by the women rushing around. He watched the birth with a kind of emotional blankness that was unhealthy. (He forced dark dream images of Padme's death from his mind. He forced all emotion from his mind.) He heard the woman's last words. He watched her stop breathing.

This was when the orphanage workers noticed he was there.

"I could take the baby up to the nursery," He offered. The woman, Miss Leach, did a double take to hear him speak so loudly. But she refused on virtue of the dirty little newborn needing to be cleaned and fed.

He watched something small, pale and pink and bloody, be placed into the gray basin to wash. It cried out with strong lungs. As Anakin moved over to the basin, to get a better look, he saw small legs twisting against the tiny tub, splashing amid water.

For a moment, time did not matter. For a moment the world had stopped moving. For a moment Anakin saw a masterpiece being made, as life rose up and filled the world with color.

He persuaded the Nurse to let him help. No one really wanted to work to much that night and they had a funeral to arrange as well. And a ten year old could hold a weak newborn as well as a bed could.

By the early morning Tom Marvolo Riddle was comfortably wrapped in a soft worn blanket and resting in the small arms of Anakin Skywalker, with a warm bottle for feeding him resting near them. Anakin held the baby as close as he could in the dawn light, tracing the small features of the blotchy face, and he thought of redemption.

The half-brother he'd never known had raised Luke. His fiercest political enemy had raised Leia. He himself was brought up by Obi-Wan. And in return. . . Owen and his family home burned at the hands of Imperial soldiers (if he remembered the report right). Alderaan had been destroyed in front of Leia as he watched. And, of course, Obi-Wan . . .

He could do nothing for his children now. Nor had he found Obi-Wan's reincarnation. But he did have the force- or something like it- telling him that he needed to watch this child. He was to take care of this child. And anything that happened to Anakin because of it . . . well, it was only fair that he receive the treatment he gave wasn't it? Like a dark and broken version of the golden rule he'd been taught in this galaxy's schools and churches.

There was something dark in this child. And Vader wasn't certain if he was there to try to save him or to watch him fall. But he was certain that any failure or punishment he received would be just.

That year was a strange one, all the nurses agreed. Something in the air felt heavy, like electricity waiting to turn into lightning.

Amos, the quiet boy, had adopted the quiet new year's eve baby. Other boys tried to taunt and mock the newly ten year old boy, but it was impossible to get a reaction from him. And a few months after he turned ten, he was moved to his own room in Cole's orphanage, one near the nursery, so he could take care of the baby as much as he wanted. The Orphanage workers didn't mind Amos's care for the child. It was one more child off their to-do list after all.

All the children got tutored by the a priest from the nearest church three days a week. The classes started up again in the middle of January. Amos excelled at his lessons even while carrying the lumpy newborn baby. The priest made him sit in the back- dismissing him as simple for a few months. As the child grew larger and louder, the Priest also noted that the older boy was doing excellent work. It lead to the first of many fights between Amos and an Adult over his baby.

"See here," the priest finally said after many attempts to convince the boy to leave the Baby in the nursery. "The child is big enough to stay in the nursery alone. And you have a chance to go to a real school, Amos. Not just learn to read and write with me, but to study with some other children at a school and maybe win a scholarship to a boarding school some day."

"That's nice," Amos said in the stubborn way most people didn't hear from him anymore. He had little in this life to be stubborn about. "But I don't want to go to school. I want to take care of the baby."

The adult began, again, to list the benefits of scholarship. And the potential that could come of taking care of himself first.

If Anakin had had this option when he had been a child the first time, then the baby would have grown up alone. But this wasn't Anakin's first go-around. He was going to raise him, because he could feel the call of destiny around him. Or maybe it was just his own desire for a family. Or maybe he was an old man who had no desire to go back to re-learn things in a classroom when he could raise a child for the first time. In any case, no one was going to be able to talk him into leaving the infant.

"You could grow up to be a doctor and help lots of little children. You could graduate and get a job that would help the baby or other children get ahead in life. There are lots of things you could do if you had an education. There aren't that many options for an orphan without an education."

"That's too bad," the former commander of galaxies and genocidal wife-killing vengeful cyborg said. And in his voice was heard the steal and fire of the hard soul he was. "Since I'm not going."

And nothing the head of the orphanage or the workers or the priest said could change his mind.

They did, however, paint an uncomfortable picture of Amos's future. Raising a baby wouldn't be easy in the late 1920's. Certainly not for a ten year old. And even if Anakin was calmer, happier and more at peace, he was still the same person who had given up everything he believed in and everyone he cared for in an attempt to save his wife and child (children). He wanted to be able to offer the baby who was breaking his teeth on Amos's fingers something more. He wanted to protect him. He wanted to give him everything he could, and supply him with every opportunity.

But the baby couldn't be left alone in a nursery. Every instinct and education Anakin had had in his first life told him that new children needed full human care almost constantly for healthy development. From a society that depended on robots and machines and cyborgs so heavily, Anakin knew exactly what tasks had to be given to living creatures rather than machines.

So Anakin crushed his personal ambition. He read books that the priest lent him (in an attempt to convince him to apply for scholarships) aloud to the child. He let the small one lay on top of his bed or on his floor while he practiced the math of his old life aloud. He did his chores with one eye on little Tom Riddle as he learned first to roll over, then to sit up, then to crawl.

And at night, when no one was paying any attention, Anakin snuck Tom into his room and painted the walls with those lights and colors that no one else could make. (This was not the force. This was something separate, something strange.)

Tom learned quickly for a baby. At a year old his baby sounds were shaping into short words. He was beginning to react to outsiders with enthusiasm he hadn't shown before (being a shy baby according to the orphanage workers and an apathetic one according to Anakin). Anakin was watching him with great worry as he began to walk and run faster than others of his age.

As Tom grew, Anakin began to play with the thing that was not the force. Tom never seemed happier than when Anakin used the power around him. Little things, like making a stone glow or a twig blossom, would make the baby smile. Tom's first laugh, at the old age of sixteen months, was on the day Tom first showed his own power.

Anakin had a small toy he'd made Tom out of wire (he'd found on the streets) and a piece of wood (he'd found in a closet as a discarded part of a handle). It had originally been to help Tom while he was teething, but had long since earned a name, a painted on face, and a bit of cloth (from a thrown out rag) as clothing. Tom it carried around with him and used it to hit people who didn't pay him enough attention. (The Adults thought it was cute. Anakin was sure that Tom was just too lazy to talk to people.)

One afternoon, Anakin forgot to put the wood toy thing into the bed with Tom when he put him in his own bed for a nap. Tom made a few noises of displeasure that Anakin ignored in favor of reading an adventure story that he'd borrowed. A particularly loud grunt caught his attention, though. He looked up just in time to see toy fly from where it had been lying under Anakin's jacket. He paused and looked at Tom, who had wrapped an arm around it and was yawning again.

He now understood his mother's insistence that he never do that in front of other people. It was unnerving, even though Anakin knew (sort of) what had happened.

He didn't read any more during that naptime. He was too busy wondering what he should do with a baby that didn't understand what 'stop' meant, let alone 'if you do that then they will call you a witch and kick you out of the orphanage and we will live on the streets and not have food and why did I ever think I was going to be able to be a father- It's all my fault I should never have shown you my tricks- Oh no what am I going to do, besides fail completely- because I certainly will do that.'

He still hadn't come up with a way to hide the magic besides keeping Tom away from the other children by the time June rolled around.

And it was in that June of 1928, that Amos Walker finally learned about magic.

It really didn't help as much as it should have.


	3. Chapter 3

A Magical Offer

Anakin is playing tag with Tom in the front yard when he gets a visitor.

The man is wearing a suit of burnt orange with a green tie and handkerchief in the front pocket, all of which clashes horribly with his red hair. (Anakin only knows because Padme once gave him a personal two day fashion show where she explained several different ways to tell if something looked good or bad while trying on every piece of clothing in her personal dressing room. They'd been newlyweds. And he'd bought her an ugly dress. In the end he'd decided never to try to buy her clothing and to only dress in Jedi robes. They had never had a single problem with clothing after that.)

"Are you A. S. Walker?" The man in the ugly suit asked.

"Yes, sir," Anakin said.

"Mr Dumbledore is here about schooling, Amos," Mrs. Cole says, her hands clasped in front of herself. She doesn't sound too hopeful. To be fair she had made the mistake of telling Anakin that he wasn't responsible for Tom and should just go to school. It had been the first time in this life that Anakin had been frustrated enough that he yelled at someone. He'd gotten extra chores when he went back to apologize to her. But she never brought it up to him again.

"Could we perhaps speak elsewhere?" Mr Dumbledore asks. "I have an offer to a school that might suit you very well indeed."

"It's nearly time for Tom's nap anyway," Anakin scoops up the 15 month old child and pulls him close. He still isn't tall enough to carry Tom comfortably. But he has hopes that he'll grow faster than Tom soon enough. If he gets any of his old height back there shouldn't be a problem.

He leads the way to he and Tom's small closet of a bedroom. He's had the good luck to keep it to himself. He settles Tom into the bed with his toy and sits on the bed next to him. His chair is shared with Mr Dumbledore.

"Mr Walker," The professor starts when he has settled. "I'm here representing the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The best school of Magic in Europe, if I may say so. As a Wizard you have access to a scholarship that will provide you free schooling for the next seven years. This is a great opportunity for you."

"What?"

"I'm a what?" Amos Walker asked.

This was the part of teaching that Albus loved. To see a child's eyes light up as they learned and understood something new! The fresh breath of air that followed when the child tried to use what they learned and their world was never the same. Though at the moment little Amos seemed more of the opinion that Albus was an idiot than that he'd just shared a secret of the universe upon him.

"A wizard," Professor Albus Dumbledore explained patiently. It was his first year doing a home visit. As the youngest of the new teachers he had been volunteered for the obligation of taking on the hardest of muggle born visits: the one student who had no parents.

"And this Hoggy school thing-" Amos started again. "It's for kids who have magic?"

"Yes," Albus confirmed, "It is the best wizarding school in Europe and one of the oldest of its kind. There you will be taught how to fly and how to brew potions that heal broken bones. You will learn to charm bags into holding more than they should and transfigure stones into hedgehogs."

He smiled and waited for some kind of reaction- a laugh or disbelief or something! What he got was a sullen look.

"If I'm magic, shouldn't I be able to do those things on my own?" Amos asked. "Why would I need to go to school?"

Albus glanced over at the child that Amos had put down to rest. The child had dark hair and thin features and pale skin, like Amos Walker did. But Albus couldn't tell if the boys were brothers. It was hard with children so young. In any case, the protective and caring manner that Amos displayed towards the child may have been the reason for the attitude.

"Can you do any of that on your own?"

"Well," Amos said cautiously, "It's hard since I have to hide it all the time. And I have to cover it up when . . . when I use it. So it's not like I've had a chance to really experiment."

"Hogwarts is a safe environment," Albus hastened to add. "Where you could learn and experiment all you wanted."  
"With anything I wanted?" Amos asked, an edge to his voice.

The edge paused Albus's answer. Maybe he shouldn't give an indulgent 'yes' answer to the child. Maybe he should step up his replies and treat Amos more like a seventh year than a first.

"Well," Albus continued. "There are many areas of magic. Many are good and helpful. Some few are more . . .dangerous. There are rules at Hogwarts. But I imagine that anything you are able to learn in first year isn't going to get you in trouble while experimenting."

Amos reacted to that as an adult would, relaxing rather than looking disappointed that there were restrictions and rules.

"Good," Amos said. "There should always be limits to how far a person should go."

"I agree," Albus said. He felt a bit of a . . . wonder, an amazement, at this child who knew something that Albus had taken decades to learn. "May I ask how you learned that?"

The sharp look returned and Albus resisted the desire to look into the boy's mind.

"How does anyone learn that lesson?" He asked acidly. "I went too far and got in trouble and had to stop and go back. And now I know that there are things that people shouldn't meddle with. How did you learn that lesson?"  
"Ahh," Albus had the strangest feeling he was being tested, and not by a student or a seventh year. His mind flashed to Gelert.

"I tried to help a friend." He felt his mouth say. He felt his hands shake ever so slightly. He had never spoken about this to anyone. Not when the wounds were still so fresh. "He had such great plans. Grand plans. And we were going to make wonderful changes and do great things together. But then . . . we were going too far. And I was leaving so many . . . things . . .so many people behind that I - I didn't notice. And in the end I lost to much. I lost all of it. And I shouldn't have gone anywhere near any of . . . that stuff- but I did and it was my fault that I lost everything that mattered."

His hands are shaking on his knees. At least the trembling wasn't visible. His insides are all shaken up too. For Merlin's sake! This boy needs to go to Hogwarts. He doesn't need to hear a garbled story of betrayal and tragedy and forbidden magic.

But when he turns to look at the young man he sees a look of understanding. He sees a softness that he had only caught a glimpse of when he was coming out of the building to fetch him while Amos was playing with the child in the front yard.

"Before my Mum died I knew she was going to die." Amos says, surprising Albus. "Months before she was hit by the car, and I was dreaming of her dieing."

The boy turns to the smaller child and places a hand against his forehead. He smooths sweaty hair back and away from the eyes. A tired smile graces his face as he mutters.

"I could see the same for Tom's mum."

When he turns to Albus again he must see the confusion on the professor's face.

"She came to the Orphanage to give birth. When she came in, I could tell she was wasn't going to make it."

"Are all of these . . .moments, about death?" Albus asks. Amos turns thoughtful before answering.

"No. No. I also knew that I needed to be there when she died. I was awake all night, waiting. And when Tom was born I knew that I was going to take care of him too." He glances back at the boy and then turns to Albus again. "That's why I can't go to Hogwarts, you see. I have to be here for Tom."

Albus is quiet as his ears ring with everything he just had shoved in his face.

A Seer. The boy must have some kind of gift of divination. Albus has never had much interest in prophecies or in divination. He's of the opinion that that stuff only has sway if you let it. But to know when Death approaches is one of the Great Gifts that his mother used to read him bedtime stories about. It's the purest form of divination and sometimes considered the darkest. If this were any other child, one raised in the wizarding world, or tried to get any recognition out of their actions, then Albus would cry fraud. But to hear a muggleborn, muggle-raised child claim such a gift as though mentioning accidental magic . . .

In an effort to get his feet under him he explains that Walker's gift is a strong talent for a branch of magic called Divination. He reverts into teaching mode and explains a little of the class that is taught at Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, his mind whirls. There is no way that he can- simply by talking- convince a seer to give up something he has self prophesied. It is one of the downsides of being divination magic inclined: you tend to believe in things too strongly. (Albus will admit that he has the same problem and that he isn't a seer.)

So Albus needs to speak to the Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster. There is no way that a seer is going to avoid education simply because he believes he needs to raise a baby. And he needs to take Amos Walker to Diagon Alley or other wizarding places where he could get attached to their world. And he could show off how much safer he would be among his own. (Ariana . . . no, don't go there.)

"Mr Walker, would it be possible for me to come back another day." Albus asked. "I could give you a tour of some parts of Wizarding London and present you with different options for the child? It so would be a shame not to have you learn more about your magic."

"All right," Amos says amicably. He's been much more pleasant since Albus's small break down. Actually Walker's maturity might be a side effect of his gift. Some seers are able to recognize truth from falsehoods, after all. So strange to find a muggleborn with such magic. Albus sets up a meeting for the next week.

"And we'll make a small trip to Diagon Alley," He says with a smile. He's going to show the child their world with everything it offers and the child will not be able to say no. "You'll get to see others like us, won't that be nice?"

Then, still attempting to impress Walker, Albus apperates directly away.

 _So this was short. But it's an important scene. And who else thinks the similarity/contrast of Vader and Dumbledore is cool? Vader in on the path to the dark side and kills Padme and turns even Darker. But when Dumbledore is on the same path, he might have had a hand in his sister's death and that turns him away from the path of a Dark Lord_.


	4. Chapter 4

Clouds Gathering

 _The baby was crying, again. Anakin rolled over, exhausted. It had only been three months and Anakin didn't feel like a person anymore. His mind barely functioned and his eyes were burning and he just wanted a little sleep! He'd feed the boy only an hour before! There was no way he was hungry again!_

 _The baby was still wailing._

 _Anakin snarled. He reached for the not-force-power and tugged it into himself. Then, in one swift movement, he rolled over to face the child and threw his arm towards the baby, channeling his intentions in an instinctive move. Muscle memory with different muscles._

 _"Shut UP!"_

 _The crib set up in his room moved a few inches from the impact of the not-force-power. And the cries of the baby cut off immediately._

 _There was a single moment of silence-silence-silence that seemed to echo around the world. And then Anakin's breath caught._

 _The spike of adrenaline that shot through him had him tripping out of his bed in a second. His feet tangled in the sheet as he fell out of his bed and left him slipping, again, as he tried to get to the cradle._

 _Padme as his fingers crushed her throat and his power told her to die. Her body falling. Skywalker's, Luke's body falling from the clouds as he flung himself, wounded and in pain, away from his father. Not again. No, please, no, no, no, please, no-no-no . . ._

 _The small body was naturally pale- that didn't mean anything. Anakin's eyes looked for bruising, bleeding, anything- as he ran his fingers gently and urgently over the tiny form._

 _Tom was breathing. In fact he was still trying to scream, his little bread loaf body tensed up and pushing air out of his little lungs. But no sound was coming out._

 _The slight relief that he hadn't killed the child faded when he realized he didn't know what he_ _ **had**_ _done._

 _Finishing his inspection, and finding no broken skin or bones, Anakin lifted the child up. What had he done? The child reacted to the lifting, breaking into softer sobs that were as inaudible as the screams. Had he broken the child's vocal cords? The image of his fingers curling and a throat crushing made something inside him ache terribly._

 _He'd hurt Tom. He'd hurt his child. (Luke, tucked around a missing hand, agony clear on his young face. Leia's face as she struggled to reach man she loved as he sold him.) Why had he ever- ? He felt a scream inside him force it's way out of his throat. But what came out was a pained sob._

 _He took a deep breath. He tried to remember what Obi Wan would have said. He had vague memories of his master taking deep breaths to settle into a soft meditative state when Anakin had done something stupid. He held onto that memory and matched his breathing to that of his master's._

 _In, out, in, out. In. Out. In. . . Out. . ._

 _He pulled the no-force-power into himself. Then he gently ran it into the baby. He would be okay. This would help. The power filled the child and-_

 _-freed him._

 _The baby's sobs filled the room again._

 _Anakin's silent tears joined them._

Anakin rolled out of bed. The memory of his first damaging use of magic was twisting his stomach. Becoming a good man was a process. He'd known as he died, that there was still good in him. He'd also known there was great evil in him. He'd hoped the good counted for something.

Being with his mother, in those early days, had been enough to keep the darkness at bay. All his immediate needs had been met. His second chance to be a son and spend time with her made him happy. And his temper tantrums had been age appropriate; smashing things and yelling. And his mourning had been a quiet, personal thing.

Parenting was different.

He'd made mistakes. That night he'd silenced the child had been the first major one, but not the last. There had been one month where Anakin had dropped the child a total of five times. (In his defense he'd been sleep deprived and Tom had just become more wild and wiggly and he'd hated himself for days after each incident.)

Professor Dumbledore was going to come today. And Anakin was already rethinking his decision to not go to Hogwarts. In the moment it had seemed like just one more moment where someone thought they knew best and tried to separate Anakin and Tom. But looking back on it- this could be an opportunity to learn control. This wasn't the Jedi order who spoke about denying attachments. This was a school that offered understanding of, and control over, your power in a safe learning environment.

The separation was still an issue. Tom was his. By virtue of no one else wanting him and Anakin suffering worry and fear and guilt over the child, Tom was his. And no one was going to take him away from Anikin.

But learning about their powers would only help he and Tom. Tom wasn't a reborn soul. He didn't understand when Anakin told him to keep his powers to himself. Anakin needed to help him. And he could learn about that in a community of people like them. Maybe some of them had families like them, parents who had the same problem he did in hiding their child's unnatural, strange powers.

Anakin pulled on his shirt and tucked it in. He would get Tom up, dressed and brush their hair. When they survived breakfast without incident, he would worry about the meeting with the professor.

Dumbledore wore a lemon yellow suit he'd transfigured out of his favorite lemon yellow robes as he walked through town towards the Orphanage. (No, not his favorite robes- his favorite Lemon yellow robes. Yes, he did have five sets of lemon yellow, thank you for asking. And this set was best for it's level of comfort and the lovely gold belt that it came with when it wasn't turned into a suit.)

How was it possible for one child to be so much trouble? Dumbledore wondered, as he approached the front gate. He had a plan of action. It had been simple enough to convince the Headmaster to accept the plan. But it required a lot of effort on the part of Dumbledore. And he wasn't certain that the Walker boy would accept it.

He could only hope (thought he wasn't certain if he hoped the boy accepted or rejected the plan).

"Amos, my boy!" Dumbledore called. "How are you?"

Walker sat on the front stoop in a jacket with the baby dressed neatly by his side.

"Mr. Dumbledore. I'm fine, sir," the boy said politely. "How are you?"

"Wonderful, my boy, wonderful. How do you feel about going on a visit? Do I need to speak to the Lady of this establishment?"

"No, I told them all that Tom and I would be going out today."

"Ahh," Dumbledore rather felt he should have seen this coming. He lowered his voice and asked. "About that, Wouldn't it be best to leave the child behind? It's a place for our sort and he isn't quite . . ." He trailed off meaningfully.

"He makes his toys float, sir." There went that argument. "He'll be fine. I have a bag packed for him and I think that it might be good for him to know that we aren't alone in the world. It's been hard hiding what he's been doing."

"Strange, that you would be prompted to take care of a baby that is a wizard as well," Dumbledore mussed.

"Sometimes, sir, good things are supposed to happen. So they do."

Dumbledore watched as the boy stood up, swung the too big baby up on his hip, and grabbed his bag all in one smooth motion. That took practice.

"I have lots of questions, sir." Dumbledore wasn't surprised at that. But he did feel some trepidation over the hard look the young man gave him.

"Ask away, my boy," Dumbledore said, nerves never enough to stop him from facing a challenge. He'd once be sorted into the house of the brave after all.

Anakin listened to the Professor explain Hogwarts in more detail. The classes were . . . interesting, to say the least. Potions made some sense. Divination seemed complicated but real enough. But Runes seemed senseless. Words were definitely important but they couldn't, shouldn't be able to do things when left written around in odd places. Wand classes were only strange in the sense that a wand was needed. A piece of wood . . . Really? And words?

"Highly skilled wizards do not need to use a wand for spells that they are very familiar with. And by the time they graduate Hogwarts, most students are able to cast spells silently," Professor Dumbledore explained, "They can think the spell and it will happen."

"But they still need the . . . the words of the spell," Anakin checked.

"The incantation," Dumbledore defined. "Yes."

"Oh," Anakin had to think about it. He'd known for a while that what he was doing wasn't the Force. But to think it was so different . . .

"Are we almost there?" He asked, shifting Tom to his other arm. They had been traveling for quite a while and Tom was beginning to want down.

"Nearly," Dumbledore seemed just as relieved at the prospect as Anakin was. "Just a block or two."

Anakin was . . . annoyed at the relief. Dumbledore was an adult used to working with children. He should be able to at least pretend to be patient."Do you mind if we let Tom walk with us the rest of the way?" He asked sweetly. "Only he's getting fussy and my arms are getting tired."

The professors' sigh of frustration brought sweet victory to Anakin's sadistic soul.

 _So, suddenly the story is going in a different direction than I'd planned. Which means a lot of new work and reworking of old work. Oh well . . . this is more fun to write anyway._


	5. Chapter 5

Flashes of light

Albus Dumbledore, newest teacher of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, head boy and top of his class the year he graduated, and well known music lover, was running out of energy.

Amos Walker seemed to have an endless supply of questions. It wasn't in the young, over exuberant way that most children had, either. Albus was used to that from his first year classes. Talking to Amos was more similar to the way that Auror's had interviewed him after his brother was arrested for experimenting on Goats.

The cycle began with a deep question. Then careful listening. Then pertaining questions. Listening. Reason why something he'd said was wrong or lacking. Listening with a critical question. Then starting a new topic.

Albus was just waiting for a notebook to appear. Maybe for the boy to tell him, politely, that Albus needed to look into that in more depth and come back to teach him when he understood it better. Or tell him that it all seemed okay but that Amos would need to reserve judgement until he investigated further. Maybe even say "Well, it all looks good. But you might want to spend more time with your brother to prevent this type of thing from happening again."

This boy was built for Law Enforcement.

"- and so the village of DiaGono was absorbed into London, quite on accident, as the city grew. Charms and enchantments, already on it, prevented the new city from noticing as they built their homes against preexisting ones. As London became so important and muggleborns so welcomed into the community, a pun based nickname became more and more prevalent. And eventually the area was renamed Diagon Alley rather than DiaGono Village. It had nothing to do with the shape at all."

"Good," Amos said. "Because this street is straight. With lots of small straight streets coming off of it. And they run parallel to the streets outside. And I do not appreciate people who cannot see the clear differences between two oposite lines."

Amos paused as he looked over the cauldron ingredients in the display. "What is this?"

Albus was getting this boy into school no matter what. Albus wasn't going to look back on this headache of a day as a waste of time. And he had to get the boy into the school if he wanted to get revenge on all of the other teachers for sticking him with this duty.

The Tour was nice. Anakin saw a lot of interesting things and learned a lot more. And the trip ended in ice cream, and that was a rare treat.

But he did notice a lot of things that he thought even normal boys would recognize, that the Professor seemed to not see.

Like the way that woman in the pub had firmly steered her children away from them when Dumbledore had spoken to the innkeeper, despite the kid's clear intention to put in another order. Another woman in the street had called her children to her from where they were looking at broomsticks, once she saw him. Another had simply moved between he and her children and quietly eyed him. While looking around, he saw several adults talking behind their hands while looking at him.

The way the store owners had always moved to be near whenever he and the professor were, when they entered a store. They didn't offer any help or try to make them buy things. They just watched him. Especially when Dumbledore was distracted. The store owner in the book shop had simply followed them around the store, supposedly to dust, but clearly keeping an eye on him as well.

He saw the way children his own age made faces as they saw his clothing.

He saw the men in the community do the same thing.

He'd visited a village once, in the early days of the clone wars. The Jedi were considered unnecessary outsiders and intruders. The faces and reactions had been similar.

One woman had tried to get close to Obi Wan. The force had been the only reason Obi Wan had caught her knife before it dug into his ribs. The village head had guards drag her away as he promised it wouldn't happen again. But they had seen her, mere hours later, walking free down the village street.

This was not a safe place.

But the Ice Cream was very good.

As he approached the corner table with their treats, Albus was considering the way to broach the topic of school. He put the chocolate cream in front of Amos and the biscuits next to him, closer to Tom, who they were meant for. He sat and took a bite of his own vanilla ice cream, before launching into the new topic.

"What do you think of Diagon Alley?"

"It's full of interesting things," Amos said. He dipped one of the biscuits into his ice cream and passed it to Tom. Tom immediately tried to fit the whole thing into his mouth. Amos pulled it out so he could swallow. It turned into an odd sort of dance, coordinated and graceful and feeding both boys, somehow. "The people aren't very nice."

"What do you mean?" Albus said, blinking. He couldn't remember anyone saying anything to Amos. There had been no slurs or taunts. They hadn't been kicked out of anywhere. It was a marked improvement from fifty years before and some of the stories his mother had told him. Certainly improved from the time he was a child.

"They look at me like I'm a disease," Amos said casually, "Or a criminal. Do they know something I don't?"

Albus met the boy's sharp eyes.

"Ah," Albus doesn't know how to respond. "Your cloths mark you as Muggleborn. And some still carry old prejudices."

"Almost everyone carries current prejudices," Amos corrected. He wiped the mashed remnants of the biscuit from his hands and put a new one into his ice cream before handing it off to the youngest at the table.

And this was how Albus would convince the child to come to school.

"Prejudice doesn't change unless it's fought," he starts.

"You want me to go to school," Amos says over top of him.

"What?" Albus says, certain he misheard.

"You want me to go to school," Amos says. "And if I do, and do well, I'll have to fight against prejudice everyday. Everything I want to do will be judged for something I can't control. And strangers will be waiting and hoping that I fail at everything I do. And I'll have to leave the only family I have."

That was a decent summary of what each Muggleborn was asked when they were invited to hogwarts, Albus had to admit.

"Yes," he starts, again. If he presents this right-

"At least you're honest," Amos concedes with grace. "I'll go."

Well, Albus thinks to himself wryly, I am very convincing, aren't I?

"Then let's get ourselves to the bank, after this," he says. "We'll get you the orphan's fund and pick up your supplies."

Amos nods. He reaches over to Tom, who is on his own chair, and pulls him onto his lap. He presses another biscuit into tiny hands and brushes the dark hair away from his head. The affection reminded Albus of the bargaining chip he'd gotten from the Headmaster. (And of the gentle touch of his own father's hand on his head when he was just a boy.)

"The headmaster had an offer for you, about leaving school." He said, happy in interrupt what seemed to be a moment of grief for the young man. "He has offered to have a teacher transport you to the nearest train station each week. From there you could walk back to the Orphanage and tell them you took a train home."

"Who'd waste that amount of money on an orphan?" Amos asked, surprise in his voice. Which was a good point, Albus knew. A trip from scotland to london was . . . not something a child should do weekly on a train.

"The spell is a quick one," Albus assures him. "The walk out of Hogwarts and to the Orphanage will take longer. And we can say that it's part of the scholarship? A bit of magic should stop any questions really." He shrugs, because there are six or seven spells to prevent questions that he can think of off hand.

"What's the spell called?" Amos says as he takes a napkin to Tom's face and begins to clean up their table.

They leave the shop, talking about the different ways of transportation with magic. Amos is brighter, happier, than Albus has seen him before. But even happy, there is something heavy in his eyes. The joy a man takes before battle, Albus thinks; But it's just a thought, Albus has always had a dramatic edge, and no child would think that way about school.

It's the fear that does it.

Anakin was always an adrenaline junkie. And even with a new peaceful life, he finds himself . . . stressed. He's always better, he tells himself, when he has something to fight for. And making sure that Tom isn't going to walk down a street he doesn't fit in, being looked at like that, for an orphans stipend, is something he can make into his cause.

But really it's the fear.

Padme and Anakin bonded over a shared battle (and miles of flowering fields surrounded by lake and mountain as they ran from their fears). They kissed before going to die (and looking out over a lake from a balcony as they felt each other's loneliness). Anakin finds love in the moments before the fall of war (and in a hut made of stone and sand, and in peaceful lake palaces, and in the calm of a Jedi temple).

But Anakin can taste the fear on the back of his throat and it fills him with something he refuses to acknowledge, refuses to call glee, refuses to think about.

Anakin is going to go. He will leave Tom alone for more time than he wants. But it's for Tom. To make a better life for him. (And that can even be true, so long as he doesn't forget it in the battle hunger that eats his soul.)

Anakin is afraid. He is entering a world where he is an outsider (and that ended so well for him last time). He will be powerless, friendless, without even a mentor assigned specifically to him. He will be alone.

He's been in that situation before. And he made something of himself. From a slave, to an unwanted to-old student, to the hero with no fear, commander of armies, and then the second most powerful being in the traversed galaxies.

He wanted this. He wanted it more than anything. And it would make life better for Tom.

If he had power, he could protect Tom.

There is a reason that the first step in any addiction recovery is to recognize and admit the problem. The worst part of Humans is their infuriating inability to recognize their own self destructive patterns.


End file.
